Tracking militarists’ efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy

Michael Gerson

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Michael Gerson, an evangelical Christian who served as a chief aide and speechwriter in the George W. Bush White House, is a conservative columnist for the Washington Post.[1] Gerson’scolumns cover both domestic politics and foreign affairs and he promotes a starkly moralistic vision of U.S. foreign policy based on his belief that “evil exists and it has to be confronted.”[2] His religious beliefs have at times led Gerson to embrace many of the more radical prescriptions promoted by neoconservatives like the decision to invade Iraq.[3]

Standing Against Trump

Gerson has been a harsh critic of Donald Trump, calling him an “unhinged president” who is “compulsive, abusive and easily triggered.” He has also criticized fellow conservatives who seek to explain away Trump’s erratic behavior: “Trump’s conservative defenders are attempting something extraordinary: to politically normalize abnormal psychology. Their sycophancy enables a sickness.”[4]

Gerson has consistently and acerbically attacked Trump and his associates. In November 2018, as some of Trump’s closest past associates were providing information to the special counsel investigating him, Gerson quipped, “And there is a reason. …Trump has traditionally employed unethical people to serve his purposes. It is because he has unethical jobs for them to do, involving schemes to remove political threats and gain electoral advantage. And there is every reason to believe that Trump has fully participated in such schemes.”[5]

Gerson is unsparing in his criticism of Trump. In the wake of the murder of Saudi Washington Post journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi, Gerson was outraged at Trump’s reluctance to offer any criticism of the Saudi leadership and his transactional approach to his response as it become more difficult to escape the conclusion that the murder was carried out at the behest of the very top of the Saudi royal family. After listing several contemporary and disparate global tragedies of war and human rights atrocities, Gerson observed that human suffering does not seem to register on Trump’s radar and that, “This does violence to American ideals. But it also illustrates a foreign policy law. A vacuum of U.S. leadership is not occupied by good and pleasant things. It is filled by ruthless power politics, aimless allies, aggressive authoritarians, gathering threats and cruelty without consequence. And the trail of evidence leads from the villages of Myanmar to a consulate in Istanbul.”[6]

In September 2018, as Trump was lashing out over a book and an anonymous op-ed that detailed the chaotic and troubling state of the White House, Gerson wrote, “Amid this crisis, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his “unwavering faith in President Trump,” and the president reacted just as the North Korean leader surely knew he would—touting the positive opinion of a homicidal despot on Twitter as a character reference. …This lesson can’t be lost on foreign intelligence services. … Here is the increasingly evident reality of the Trump era: We are a superpower run by a simpleton. From a foreign policy perspective, this is far worse than being run by a skilled liar. It is an invitation to manipulation and contempt.”[7]

Gerson has been highly critical of U.S. policy in Syria. That criticism started during the presidency of Barack Obama and has continued consistently under President Trump. In an April 2018 op-ed, Gerson laid out what he saw as a missed opportunity in Syria.

“The last two administrations have placed their main emphasis on two goals—defeating the Islamic State and opposing the use of chemical weapons—for a reason. In the chaos that once was Syria, Obama and Trump have wanted to define the U.S. mission in ways that are discrete, limited and achievable. …The outcome in Syria that would have best served U.S. values and interests? A well-armed coalition of moderate rebels forcing the regime to the negotiating table, resulting in a coalition government that includes some regime elements but not Assad.” Gerson, however, does not lay out any strategic theory as to how this might have been achieved.[8]

Just weeks earlier, Trump had announced that he intended to wind down the U.S. military presence in Syria, Gerson took the opportunity to criticize both Trump and Obama for their handling of Syria. “Years of poor decisions—and no decisions—have left a wicked problem in Syria. But U.S. forces are making a difference. And their withdrawal at this point would be an act of strategic imbecility. It would leave Russia as the undisputed power broker at the heart of the Middle East. It would cede oil fields under the control of U.S.-allied forces. And it would reward Iran’s search for regional hegemony. Does Trump even realize the incoherence of objecting to the softness of the Iran nuclear agreement while proposing to surrender Syria to Iran?

“And then there is the radiating humanitarian nightmare. … Our indifference is storing up generations of resentment and rage.

“The final victory of Iran, Russia and Assad would send a number of clear messages: That mass murder works. That the use of chemical weapons works. That the forced starvation of civilians works. That the rules of war and condemnations by the United States can be ignored with impunity. And the slow-motion betrayal of Syria has sent a message to every refugee I met and to every potential friend of our country: It can be dangerous to trust in America.”[9]

On Iran, Gerson focused on urging an active U.S. role in supporting domestic Iranian opposition rather than a regime change strategy from the outside. Echoing a theme popular with neoconservatives he served with in the George W. Bush administration, Gerson recommended, “[T]he Trump administration needs to increase the cost to the regime of a comprehensive crackdown. This would need to be done in concert with the Europeans, making clear that repression will bring a return to economic isolation and sanctions. An effective U.S. response would also attempt to increase the access of Iranian citizens to the Internet and social media—which is effectively blocked—through public pressure or (some have suggested) satellite Internet access. This would permit the spread of information about the regime—how about better publicizing the cost of Iranian interventions in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza?—and reveal regime violence to the world in real time. In a struggle such as this one, information is ammunition. … Implicit in all of this is something often dismissed and completely undeniable: the strategic value of democracy promotion in a strong foreign policy.”[10]

In a July 2017 op-ed for the Washington Post, Gerson pleaded for Congress to confront the president: “Applying the 25th Amendment (containing the procedure to remove an unfit president from office) is a practical impossibility, since it involves the Cabinet turning against the president. But House and Senate Republicans should be prepared to aggressively challenge unbalanced or unhinged presidential language and decisions, rather than trying to dismiss them as simply a “distraction.”[11]

In the Bush White House

Although not a neoconservative like many of his colleagues in the Bush administration, Gerson played an important role crafting President Bush’s messages. Describing the similarities between Bush’s and Gerson’s outlooks, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in 2006 that he was “an influential figure in the White House, in part because he shares Bush’s belief in the power of faith—both men are evangelical Christians—and because he possesses a preternatural ability, his friends say, to anticipate Bush’s thinking.” One Bush adviser told Goldberg that there had been a “mind meld” between the two men.[12]

Working with a team of other speechwriters, Gerson helped verbalize the country’s mission in the “war on terror,” as Bush phrased it in his second inaugural: “All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.”[13]

According to Goldberg: “The three most famous words [Gerson] has ever set to paper are ‘axis of evil,’ a phrase referring to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea that made its first appearance in the 2002 State of the Union Message. A speechwriter then on Gerson’s team, David Frum, had proposed ‘axis of hatred,’ but, according to Frum, Gerson substituted ‘evil’ for its more theological resonance.”[14]

Gerson was a champion of the Iraq War. Explaining his support for the war, he once said, “The people of the Middle East are not exceptions to this great trend of history, and, by standing up for these things, we are on the right side of history.”[15] In the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Gerson was charged with writing speeches “that would offer vivid evidence to the American public of the risk posed by Hussein, yet try to convince voters that Bush would not attack Iraq rashly. He had to scare people and reassure them at the same time.”[16]

On the other hand, Gerson opposed some of the policies promoted by the Bush administration’s hawks and neoconservatives, including on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Wrote Goldberg, “In 2002, a senior White House official told me, Gerson outflanked Dick Cheney, who didn’t want Bush to declare unambiguously his support for a Palestinian state, as Gerson had urged him to do—and as Bush did, in a speech that Gerson wrote.”[17]

Summarizing his tenure at the White House, the Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin wrote in June 2005, “As Bush’s chief speechwriter in the first term, Gerson gets credit for soaring oratory that often transcended its pedestrian delivery. As an evangelical Christian, Gerson also gets credit for the injection of Christian themes, imagery and language into the White House communications strategy.”[18]

Ramesh Ponnuru, writing in the conservative National Review, referred to him as “Bush’s Soul,” noting that “Bush’s spokesman and press conferences have not done much of the work of defending his most important policies or defining his central themes. His prepared speeches took on that task, and Gerson more than anyone else, wrote them.”[19]

On Foreign Affairs

After leaving government service, Gerson became a columnist for the Post, where he has continued to defend the actions of the Bush administration, as well as champion his own moralistic vision on foreign affairs. In one illustrative column, Gerson used the hardnosed—and often brutal—“realism” of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as a backdrop for promoting his own worldview, writing: “[I]t is clear that repeated doses of foreign policy realism can deaden the conscience. In President Nixon’s office, a lack of human sentiment was viewed as proof of mental toughness—an atmosphere that diminished the office itself. Realists are often dismissive of Manichean distinctions between good and evil, light and darkness. But in the world beyond good and evil, some may be lightly consigned to the gas chambers.”[20]

Before the election of Barack Obama, critics accused Gerson of using his position at the Post as a shill for Bush administration policies.[21] In July 2007, for example, as the White House was pressuring Iran for interfering in Iraq,[22] Gerson appeared to echo administration talking points. Pointing to both Iran and Syria as the sources of U.S. woes in Iraq, Gerson wrote: “In a kind of malicious chemistry experiment, hostile powers are adding accelerants to Iraq’s frothing chaos. Iran smuggles in the advanced explosive devices that kill and maim American soldiers. Syria allows the transit of suicide bombers who kill Iraqis at markets and mosques, feeding sectarian rage. This is not a complete explanation for the difficulties in Iraq. Poor governance and political paralysis would exist whether Iran and Syria meddled or not. But without these outside influences, Tony Blair told me recently, the situation in Iraq would be ‘very nearly manageable.'”[23]

Although wary of taking military action against Iran at that time, Gerson did favor “limited but forceful action against Syria’s Ho Chi Minh Trail of terrorists.”[24]

Gerson was critical of the Obama administration’s national security strategy, characterizing President Obama’s statement that “America must move off a permanent war footing” a “triumph of speechwriting over experience.”[25] Writing for the Post in January 2015, Gerson emphasized that “Americans need to be prepared for years of conflict—and for the strong possibility of terrorist escalations.” He added that while “Obama is correct that this war requires a variety of non-military strategies” the “task that remains is a global armed conflict of uncertain duration.” He claimed that this conflict would entail “maintaining a technological edge to monitor the communications of potential terrorists. It will involve arming, training and guiding (sometimes with American boots on the ground) proxies to fight battles. It will involve targeted killings with drones, bombers and special operations forces.”[26]

After the emergence of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014, Gerson sharply rebuked President Obama’s “doctrine of leading from behind.” “Recent history yields one interpretation: If the United States does not lead the global war on terrorism, the war will not be led,” Gerson wrote for the Post in August 2014. “But he still refuses to broaden his conception of the U.S. role in the Middle East.”[27]

Gerson had previously characterized Obama’s foreign policies as the Bush Doctrine in disguise. “As a candidate, Obama defined his approach as the opposite of everything Bush. Whatever the issue, Obama would be the photographic negative. But as president, Obama’s foreign policy has been slowly evolving toward the views of his predecessor. Obama’s pride will not allow him to admit it. His rhetorical imprecision obscures it. But behind the fog is the Bush Doctrine.”[28]

Among the evidence cited by Gerson for this conclusion were Obama’s tamping down of the language of the “war on terror” while at the same time boosting troop levels in Afghanistan and significantly ramping up drone attacks in Pakistan—both situations, Gerson failed to note, were legacies of Bush decision-making in the “war on terror.” Gerson also cited Obama’s purported embrace of Bush’s “freedom” agenda. Arguing that the Obama administration initially “sneered at the whole idea” of human rights and freedom, Gerson claimed, “the spreading heroism of Middle Eastern protesters has been enough to melt the indifference of even the most frosty realists. History has pushed Obama toward a binary choice: Betray freedom or embrace it. With reluctance, he has embraced it.”[29]

Gerson’s at times one-dimensional moralism that has drawn criticism from the likes of former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who once argued that Bush’s speeches were too morally simplistic: “Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn’t expect we’re going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it’s earth.”[30]

Other Experience

Since his time studying at the evangelical Wheaton College in Illinois, Gerson has been involved in Christian-based activism on issues including poverty and global health issues, notably AIDS. One of his early efforts was to join Charles Colson, who had served prison time for his role in the Watergate scandal, in his prison ministry.

Gerson carried his activism into conservative politics, serving as an advisor to Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) and then as a speechwriter for both the Steve Forbes and Bob Dole/Jack Kemp campaigns during the 1996 presidential race.[31] In 1999, George W. Bush, then Texas governor, hired Gerson, who was at the time a senior editor for U.S. News and World Report, where he was covering the Clinton impeachment, among other issues. Gerson, a onetime Jimmy Carter supporter (he left the Democratic Party largely over abortion), was immediately attracted to Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” Before joining the Bush administration, Gerson worked at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

In 2006, shortly after leaving the White House, Gerson become a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a columnist for the Washington Post. “Mike is well-known as an eloquent writer and provocative thinker, and I’m thrilled he’s decided to do this,” said editorial page editor Fred Hiatt in a statement. “I’m sure that, with other recent additions such as Eugene Robinson and Ruth Marcus, Mike will contribute to the liveliness, thoughtfulness and unpredictability of our op-ed page.”[32]

Humanitarianism

Gerson’s activism, particularly on issues like poverty and AIDS, has at times led him to challenge other conservative Christian factions. In a 2006 Newsweek piece entitled “The New Social Gospel,” Gerson sought to move beyond the “narrowness of the religious right,” writing: “During my time in the White House, the most intense and urgent evangelical activism I saw did not come on the expected values issues—though abortion and the traditional family weren’t ignored—but on genocide, global AIDS, and human trafficking. The most common request I received was, ‘We need to meet with the president on Sudan’—not on gay marriage. This reflects a head-snapping generational change among evangelicals, from leaders like Falwell and Robertson to Rick Warren, focused on fighting poverty and AIDS in Africa, and Gary Haugen, confronting rape and sexual slavery in the developing world. Since leaving government, I’ve asked young evangelicals on campuses from Wheaton to Harvard who they view as their model of Christian activism. Their answer is nearly unanimous: Bono.”[33]

Gerson’s Washington Post bio emphasizes his numerous humanitarian endeavors: “Gerson serves as Senior Advisor at ONE, a bipartisan organization dedicated to the fight against extreme poverty and preventable diseases. He is the Hastert Fellow at the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy at Wheaton College in Illinois. He serves on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience, the Board of Directors of Bread for the World, the Initiative for Global Development Leadership Council, and the Board of Directors of the International Rescue Committee. He is co-Chair of The Poverty Forum and Co-Chair of the Catholic/Evangelical Dialogue with Dr. Ron Sider. … Gerson was a top aide to President George W. Bush as Assistant to the President for Policy and Strategic Planning. He was a key administration advocate for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), the fight against global sex trafficking, and funding for women’s justice and empowerment issues.”[34]

Michael Gerson Résumé

Harvard University Institute of Politics: Former Visiting Fellow, Fall 2006

George Bush Presidential Campaign: Speechwriter

U.S. News and World Report: Former Senior Editor

Heritage Foundation: Former Senior Policy Adviser

Dole-Kemp Presidential Campaign: Policy Adviser and Speechwriter

Prison Fellowship Ministries

Government

White House: Assistant to the President for Policy and Strategic Planning, 2005-2006; Assistant to the President for Speechwriting and Policy Adviser, 2002-2005; Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Presidential Speechwriting, 2001-2002

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